CATHERINE HALL, St James — Former champions Cornwall College and St James High are confident they will get a positive result when they face each other in their opening 2012 ISSA/Gatorade/Digicel daCosta Cup Zone A game at the Montego Bay Sports Complex on Saturday.

For the second straight season, the game will form part of the Cornwall College Home Coming week activities.

Both teams along with Spot Valley High had finished the 2011 season tied on 24 points but St James High and Cornwall College advanced on tiebreakers.

However, neither team was able to get past the Inter-zone round.

Green Pond leads the four team Zone A, after beating Maldon High 3-1 on Tuesday, thanks to a first half hat trick from Kasheif Brown.

Anchovy High and Irwin have both withdrawn from the competition.

Come Saturday, both coaches, Cornwall’s Hopeton Gilchrist and St James High’s Gregory Palmer said they were “ready” and were confident of victory in what they both said had been a good rivalry.

Gilchrist told Observer West yesterday that their pre-season preparations were “mixed, but mostly good.”

Gilchrist who is in his second year as the coach added that despite St James High dominating the series over the past three seasons– winning four of the last five games against Cornwall– they were “not daunted as we think we have a good team.”

While Cornwall has managed to retain a number of players form last year’s team, St James High has retained just one starter, goalkeeper Omar Mazlin. Palmer said however that his team is in a “rebuilding process; this is a three year project.”

Palmer who is also in his second season told the Observer West that despite the relative inexperience of the team, “we are going to do our best; once you go out on the field, you want to win.”

The team got some valuable gelling opportunity by playing in the St James Under 20 competition, losing in the final.